Cécile Girardin

I coordinate carbon cycling data for the GEM network. I am an ecosystems scientist focussing on carbon dynamics of tropical forest ecosystems. Following my PhD at Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment, I worked at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. I am currently a James Martin fellow, Post Doc at the OUCE, and founding director of (Oxford Biochar) [www.oxfordbiochar.com].

Hi GEM team,
Here is a message from Miles Silman and his team, who are getting ready for a big re-census in the Andes: "There is an assumption that I wanted to check on about the strapping-tape dendrometers. Has anyone ever checked for stretch? For example, putting one on a steel or concrete lamp post, etc.? If so, what did they find?"

That's right, we are just using flux data from the spreadsheets. You can find the code we use to convert from raw EGM data to flux data on github:https://github.com/OxfordEcosystemsLab/GEMcarbon.R It is called "EGM_raw_to_flux_option1" (or option 2, depending on your experimental layout - see RAINFOR-GEM manual for descriptions of options).
Let me know if you need help, Cécile

Dear Gem teams, the Environmental Change Institute are experimenting with live broadcast (and downloadable videos) of some of the MSc lectures on the theme "Welcome to the Anthropocene". Lectures will start next week. We encourage you to listen in and ask questions by twitter, and particularly encourage participation from tropical countries.

Congratulations to the GEM team (Chris, Yadvinder & Liana) who co-authored a paper in Nature this week (cover story):

"The paper answers a long-standing question about the net carbon balance of the Amazon forest. It uses aircraft flights throughout the year at four different locations to measure the change in carbon dioxide concentration if air as it passes over the Amazon Basin. The study shows that in wet years and wet seasons the Amazon is a net sink (i.e. absorbs carbon) from the atmosphere, but in dry years and dry seasons it is carbon neutral or a source of carbon.... More

Photos and images

Congratulations to the GEM team (Chris, Yadvinder & Liana) who co-authored a paper in Nature this week (cover story):

"The paper answers a long-standing question about the net carbon balance of the Amazon forest. It uses aircraft flights throughout the year at four different locations to measure the change in carbon dioxide concentration if air as it passes over the Amazon Basin. The study shows that in wet years and wet seasons the Amazon is a net sink (i.e. absorbs carbon) from the atmosphere, but in dry years and dry seasons it is carbon neutral or a source of carbon. Our main contribution in Oxford was to provide insight from our RAINFOR-GEM intensive monitoring plots across Amazonia, which suggest that the loss of the carbon sink was caused by a reduction in photosynthesis." (Y. Malhi blog, Feb 2014)